Greetings! I would like to welcome everyone to the Art of Ninzuwu blog page. If this is your first time visiting us, use this opportunity to review some of our previous articles. Do not hesitate in sharing some of your insights by posting a comment. We wish you all the best in your endeavors. Have a blessed day!
I would like to thank everyone who showed support and encouragement towards the release of The Genealogy of God: Shamanic Essays Concerning The Secret Origin of God, Religion, and Being Three-Fifths of a Man. Below is an excerpt from the chapter entitled, The Origin of God:
The Origin of God
What does the term God mean? Is God male or female? Is God the creator of the universe? Why does God allow evil to exist in the world? People pray to God for protection. Is God your personal savior? These are just a few of the ideas, questions, and sentiments that are raised by this mysterious three-lettered word. God!We can find answers to the aforementioned questions by looking into the origin of the term god. His Name Forever by Iris A. Foreman, defines the word god, as follows:
“The word god has its origins in pagan religions and was used in some form as a word to reference pagan deities who were invoked or to whom sacrifices were made.”
In Foreman’s work, it is clearly stated that the origin of the word god derives from pagan religious rites related to sacrifice. Linguistics for Everyone: An Introduction by Kristin Denham and Anne Lobeck, page 370, states:
“The Old English word god also has its roots in pagan rites of sacrifice.”
Based on the two references, cited above, the term god is pagan in origin and associated with an ancient form of sacrifice. The Origin of Pagan Idolatry: Ascertained from Historical Testimony and Circumstantial Evidence by George Stanley Faber B.D., reveals, specifically, the origin of the term god on page 207 of Volume 2.
“Theus, Theuth, or Thoth, was likewise the name of Mars or Ares. Hence Macrobius joins the god of war with Mercury, and declares him to equally be the Sun. The warrior Mercury was the Woden of Wudd of the Scythic tribes; and Wudd or Budd was the same as the Indo-Scythic Buddha, whose worship was brought from Asia into Europe by the Gothic emigrants from Cashgar and Bokhara.….Each of these names is Thoth-Ares or Thoth the Sun: and it may be observed, that from Thoth or Theuth the Greeks borrowed their word Theus as did the Latins their Deus, which they severally used by way of eminence to denote the godhead. Our English word God has been taken from another appellation of this same deity, which together with our language we received from our Indo-Scythic ancestors. God, Ghaut, Godama, and Gautama, are varied titles of Wudd or Buddha; and Buddha is the same as Thoth or Hermes.”
Faber informs us that term God is taken from an appellation associated with the deity Thoth, but is also a title of Buddha. Although monotheistic religions promote a brand of worship which they claim is divorced from paganism, their use of the term god reinforces a marriage with heathenism.
Before we continue, I would like to inform the reader that the author’s use of the term pagan is without prejudice, as pagan means ethnic. Encyclopedia of Human Services and Diversity, edited by Linwood H. Cousins, page 488, states:
“In early modern English usage, the term ethnic has been used to describe a pagan or heathen people.”
Returning to our discussion at hand, Faber’s work informs us that the origin of terms like theus, theo, theology, ultimately derive from the deity Thoth, who is closely associated with Buddha. Interestingly, we find that the English term god is derived from a title of Buddha, some of which are God, Ghaut, Godama, and Gautama.
The science of etymology involves more than just looking up the origin of a word in some reference book. Our research into the origin of a word should also illustrate historically how a word moves from one language group to the next. Faber demonstrated this principle, as his writings reveal how the term God came into European usage by way of the Scythians. Daniel Hopkins, in a book entitled, Father and Son, East is West, illustrates this same history:
“Did Jesus call God, Jehovah? Or Yahweh? Or Elohem (Gods)? Jesus called God “the Father” and he told the people that they don’t know the father that he speaks of, nor have they seen his form (John 5:37). Also, Jesus said, “You know me, and where I am from, but he who sent me is true, and you do not know him.” (John 7:28). Jesus refers to God as Alaha, obviously referring to the Arabic title for the Buddha, which is Araha…….
The Etymology of the word “God” is ancient and altogether missing from Judaic scripts. The Buddha’s family name was Got-ama (Ox-Great) and after his paranirvana parts of his clan the Sakas (Shakya) began migrating north and northwest. The Sakas were known to the Romans as Scythians and began to populate Europe via Buddhist Afghanistan throughout the first millennia A.D. They mixed with Druids (Celts) and Gothic tribes. One mix of people identified more with their Indo roots and named themselves Saxons (Sons of Saka). One tribe chose the name Budi and could have founded the ancient city Buda in the place known today as Budapest. It would be reasonable to suggest that they inserted their “Goatama” as “God” in Gothic texts to spite the Christian torrent that deemed them heretical.”
Hopkins makes it very clear that the term God is not found in Judaic scripts. It is not a Hebrew word. He also illustrates that the term God was brought into Europe via Buddhist Afghanistan by the Scythians near the first millennia A.D. The author is able to demonstrate that even Jesus’ use of the term God was in association with the word Buddha. Hopkins’ work is in complete agreement with earlier cited references.
Buddha’s association with the deity Thoth, from which terms like theology and theocratic originate, is well-known and accepted by historians. Roger-Pol Droit examines some of Faber’s observations, cited earlier, in a book entitled, The Cult of Nothingness: The Philosophers and the Buddha, which was published by The University of North Carolina. Droit clearly points out that Faber’s work was in line with what other scholars had recorded regarding Buddha:
“Before the beginning of the nineteenth century, there was no clearly defined system attached to the Buddha‘s name. This founder with many names was not seen as a single individual in either the accounts of travelers or letters from missionaries. Long after it was recognized that the Chinese Fo, the Japanese Xaca, the Sammonacodom of the Talapoin monks in Siam were the same person as the Indian Budda, he was still generally credited with no more than fathering an obscure idolatry exiled on the perimeter of Asia. Bodh, Budh, or Bouddou were the starting points for an archaic idolatry…….In his own way, he summarized a form of discourse that was already old. “The primeval Buddha,” Faber wrote, “is the same as Vishnu, or Shiva, or Osiris.” Why? What documents, what arguments permit this assertion? Such questions do not really appear to be pertinent. All that mattered was the affirmation of a single identity with different names. Other passages from the same work confirm this; we learn that “Thoth and Bouddha were the same person as Idris,” or that the Buddha, Vishnu, and Noah were one and the same person. George Stanley Faber was nevertheless not someone with a deranged mind. Dozens of works compared the Buddha to Hermes, to the planet Mercury, to Noah, to Moses, to Thoth, to Odin, or to Wotan. These series of identifications first signaled the Buddha’s belonging to the “primitive world.”
According to Droit’s observations, there existed a ‘Buddha belonging to a primitive world.’ Maybe what is commonly known about the Buddha may have existed in a time much older than popularly discussed? A prehistoric Buddha perhaps? The irony of all of this is that Buddha rejected the idea of a supreme creator. The use of one of his titles, God, in association with the idea of a supreme creator is quite mysterious, given the basis of the ideology associated with Buddha. Hearing the Voice of God: In Search of Prophecy by Mordecai Schreiber, page 137 explains:
“The original Buddha rejected the idea of a creator, denied the concept of creation, and saw divinity as a hindrance to achieving the state of nirvana.”
Now that we have seen evidence that the term god is founded in the “pagan faith,” it is good to see how it was defined by the ancients. The title Gautama, from which God derives, is composed of the Sanskrit “gŐ (गः)” and “tama (तम)”. “Tama” means “darkness” and “gŐ” means inter alia “bright light”. This definition gives birth to the meaning of one who vanquishes darkness (ignorance) by his illumination (spiritual knowledge). Buddha means the “enlightened one.” When we take into consideration the meanings of these titles, the term God appears to be a title of a man or woman who has transformed themselves into an enlightened being. Does this mean that the earliest definitions of God was a title given unto a human sage? The Encyclopedia Britannica (1911), edited by Hugh Chisholm, Volume 2, page 212 states:
“gods of fire, wind and water, gods of the sea, and above all gods of the sky, show no signs of having been ghost gods at any period in their history. They may, it is true, be associated with ghost gods, but in Australia it cannot even be asserted that the gods are spirits at all, much less that they are spirits of dead men; they are simply magnified magicians, super-men who have never died; we have no ground, therefore, for regarding the cult of the dead as the origin of religion in this area..“
The Encyclopedia Britannica is discussing the historical origins of religious worship. The oldest religious rites are found in the cult of the dead, better known as ancestor worship. We say this not in debate of any religious belief, but in reference to the earliest archaeological remains that have been discovered. There is however, one exception, as The Encyclopedia Britannica reveals that in Australia the first gods were magicians.
According to some of the references cited previously in our analysis, the term god derived from a pagan religious practice that was associated with sacrifice. How is it then that God, which is a title of a Buddha, the newly-transformed “magician,” is also associated with sacrifice?
Scholars are aware that the oldest religious remains are those of the ancestral cults. In ancestor worship, commonly called the cult of the dead, it is believed that “sacrifice” is a tool of empowerment for a newly-deceased relative. The day of the relative’s death, or ancestor, is their birthday in the spirit world. Family members of the deceased would offer a form sacrifice that was believed to be useful in empowering their ancestors in the spirit world, much like breastfeeding a newborn child. The more an ancestor matured in strength, the greater their ability to bestow blessings upon their descendants. Published in the mid-1800’s, Spiritism and the Cult of the Dead in Antiquity, by Lewis Bayles Paton Ph.D, states:
“Sacrifice is a rite that has meaning only in the cult of the dead. The blood, in which the life of the animal resides, is poured out in order that the shades may drink of it and renew their vigour. Offerings of food and drink are not needed by celestial deities, but are needed by spirits of the dead, and have been offered to them from the earliest times…and were afterward extended to other divinities..”
The day of death is a day of birth in the spiritual world. This principle is honored in the modern custom of having a “wake” before a funeral. The wake is gathering where loved ones can the body of the deceased and give offerings of emotional energy (life-force) in an effort to help push the newborn being into the spiritual realm. Leaving flowers and other gifts by the graves of the deceased is a practice that originated from the principle of sacrifice in order to renew the vitality of the dead. Paton continues:
“Because of the powers that have just been described the dead were regarded by all ancient peoples as supernatural beings,….Veneration of the dead is seen in rites of mourning, in care of the corpse, in bringing of sacrifice, and in offering prayers.”
In times of remote antiquity, when a shaman (magician, medicine man, priest, spiritual worker) died, they became a god in the invisible realms, as they were in life. Since they worked as a mediator between their respective tribe and the divine forces of nature during their lifetime, they would continue in this capacity with a greater sense of awareness after death. Many of these spiritual workers were also rulers of their respective communities. Prayer and sacrifice were offered when they died. The more strength they gained in the invisible realms, the easier they could bless their descendants. Let us remember that sacrifice only has meaning in the cult of the dead. Therefore, any deity that required sacrifice were either spirits of the dead or gods of the underworld. An Encyclopedia of Shamanism, Volume 1, by Christina Pratt, discusses the role of a shaman in the afterlife:
“In some cultures the shaman becomes a helping spirit and a protecting spirit for the people.”
Based on the information we have examined so far, it can even be said that the God of Noah is an ancestral spirit that possibly served as a shaman himself. In Genesis 8: 20-21, we read:
“And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.”
In the Genesis account, the God of Noah was appeased through sacrifice, a quality inherent of a deceased ancestral spirit. God in the mind of ancient man was not the creator of the universe, but the title of either, an enlightened human being, a force of influence found in nature, a genii, or an ancestral spirit who worked in the invisible realms on behalf of his descendants.
The synchronization of God as the creator of the universe was an idea propagated by monotheistic religions in their plight to take control of the world. The idea of a conquering ruler imposing his religious beliefs upon those whom he held captive was an excellent way to increase the strength of the founding ancestral spirit of the conqueror. Nowhere is this more evident than in Biblical chronology. In Genesis 12: 1-3, we read:
“Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
Abraham is given a promise from his ancestral god that he will make a great nation out of him. This God would also bless or curse other nations based on how they treated Abraham and his offspring. Meanwhile, Abraham’s progeny would religiously rage war against all who did not submit in worship to their ancestral god.
The orders of entitlement given by Abraham’s ancestral god, Yahweh, led to some of the most horrific crimes in human history. The world had never experienced a terror as that caused by the Abrahamic god. The killing of infants, rape, and even cannibalism were all tactics used by this ancestral spirit in an effort to impose his will upon others, even the progeny of Abraham himself. One example of this is found in Jeremiah 19:9, where we read:
“And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.”
Submission in worship by the “heathen” nations was an extremely important factor if Yahweh were to grow in strength. Basically, the more people that worshipped Abraham’s ancestor, the stronger this god would grow in the invisible realms and could thereby bless his descendants with great wealth. The people outside of Israel would receive a minor portion of these blessings, which was based on how they treated Abraham’s descendants. This process describes the obtainment of the greatest resource necessary to gain power in this world. It is a very scientific process indeed. When a conquered people is forced to worship the ancestors, or gods, of their conquerors, while they may enjoy basic living, as certain spiritual principles are universal among all nations, they can never rise up as a people and assume a seat of authority in the world. And this is why history reveals to us a great legacy of oppressors who placed great care in the spiritual indoctrination of their victims. The ownership of land is only a result of a powerful force anchored in the unseen realms.
In order for the heathen nations to accept the worship of Abraham’s ancestor, they were told, if not convinced by the sword, that God did not have a human origin. In fact, it would be told that the God of Abraham was the creator of the entire universe, and this is something that even the Bible is in complete disagreement with. The mortality of Yahweh was observed by Lewis Bayles Paton Ph.D, in the previously cited work, Spiritism and the Cult of the Dead. Paton illustrates the similarities between what was held sacred by ancient Israel the customs of the cult of the dead:
“The dark holy of holies of Solomon’s temple, with its anteroom, in which a lamp was kept burning and bread and incense were offered, was the counterpart of an ancient Canaanite tomb. The holy trees, standing stones, and altars that stood beside the graves of ancestors were all reconsecrated to the worship of Yahweh.
Sacrifice is a rite that has meaning only in the cult of the dead. The blood, in which the life of the animal resides, is poured out in order that the shades may drink of it and renew their vigour. Offerings of food and drink are not needed by celestial deities, but are needed by spirits of the dead, and have been offered to them from the earliest times. It can hardly be doubted that bloody offerings and libations first arose in connection with ancestor-worship, and were afterward extended to the cult of other divinities with whom they had no natural connection. Their primitive association with the dead is shown by the fact that the blood of the victim was always poured upon the earth, so that it might sink down to the Underworld. In many ancient tombs channels were constructed through which blood and libations descended to the buried person. In like manner the old Arabian altar had a ghabghab, or pit, beneath it into which blood was poured and offerings were thrown. All such sacrifices and libations for the dead were appropriated by Yahweh.”
The religious rites of monotheism are based on necromancy, which we will later discuss in detail. The author would to suggest that the reader go to either a church, mosque, or synagogue, and take note of how the religious rites performed in these institutions are nothing more than eulogies for an ancestral spirit or genii. Most sacred books encourage the study of the dead civilizations. Not only do we find the rites of Yahweh connected to ancestor worship, but in some aspects of Judaism, he is spoken of as a very physical being. It is believed that Yahweh was the father of the Biblical Cain in some circles of rabbinical teachings. This is revealed by a careful examination of a series of scriptures in the Genesis account. Let’s start with Genesis 2:8, where it states:
“And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.”
The legendary Garden of Eden was said to exist in the “the east of Eden.” Now, let us examine where Cain was sent to after he murdered his brother Abel, as found in Genesis 4:16, where it reads:
“And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.”
In Genesis 2:8, we find that the Garden of Eden existed towards the east of Eden. Based on Genesis 4:16, Cain, “the world’s first murderer,’ was exiled to the “east of Eden,” which was in the vicinity of the Garden of Eden. Here it is that Adam and Eve was exiled from the “east of Eden” because of eating an apple. Meanwhile Cain was sent to the “east of Eden” for killing his brother. Surely, the God recorded in the Biblical book of Genesis is not the creator of the universe. Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism by Howard Schwartz, states the following belief held by some rabbis concerning the origin of Cain. On page 447, we read:
“When Cain was born, Adam knew at once that he was not of his seed, for he was not after his likeness, nor after his image. Instead, Cain’s appearance was that of a heavenly being. And when Eve saw that his appearance was not of this world, she said, I have gained a male child with the help of Yahweh.” (Genesis 4:1)
If this God was indeed the father of Cain, as proposed by some rabbis, then it would seem probable that he would protect his own son even in the face of wrongdoing. According to the Genesis account, after Cain murdered his brother Abel he received lifetime protection from God. Anyone who tried to harm Cain was to be avenged seven times over. Cain was able to dwell in land of Nod, a place that was, or in the vicinity of the Garden of Eden. While Cain is recorded in the Bible as the world’s first murderer, it is often overlooked that the city he built is the first Biblical city, which was named Enoch. I am quite sure that the city Cain built was not built by him alone, which means that he acted with authority over the residents of the people in that city. According to Biblical mythology we can say that the world’s first murder was also the earliest recorded Biblical ruler and was granted this authority by the Biblical God himself. Hallelujah! In Genesis 4: 15-17, we read:
“And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.”
Since the term god was not associated with the creator of the universe in ancient times, it is not surprising we also discover that Yahweh was not considered to be the creator of the universe by the “heathen” nations, nor the Israelites themselves. In Genesis 6:3, we read that God is composed of flesh as man also:
“And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.”
In a Wikipedia article entitled, Yahweh, we find:
“Yahweh was the national god of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The name may have originated as an epithet of the god El, head of the Bronze Age Canaanite pantheon (“El who is present, who makes himself manifest”), and appears to have been unique to Israel and Judah, although Yahweh may have been worshiped south of the Dead Sea at least three centuries before the emergence of Israel (the Kenite hypothesis). The earliest reference to a deity called “Yahweh” appears in Egyptian texts of the 13th century BC that place him among the Shasu-Bedu of southern Transjordan.
In the oldest biblical literature (12th–11th centuries BC), Yahweh is a typical ancient Near Eastern “divine warrior” who leads the heavenly army against Israel’s enemies; he and Israel are bound by a covenant under which Yahweh will protect Israel and, in turn, Israel will not worship other gods……Yahweh functioned as the dynastic cult (the god of the royal house) with the royal courts promoting him as the supreme god over all others in the pantheon (notably Baal, El, and Asherah (who is thought by some scholars to have been his consort)). Over time, Yahwism became increasingly intolerant of rivals, and the royal court and temple promoted Yahweh as the god of the entire cosmos, possessing all the positive qualities previously attributed to the other gods and goddesses.”
Ancient man was aware of several processes that occur in spiritual practice, which modern man engages in ignorantly. God was never thought of as the creator of the universe, but a power of influence of over the natural environment. This force of influence over a said environment animals, humans, plants, the weather, or even a ghost. All of these things display some sort of influence over the environments they inhabit. It is for this reason that they were called gods and spirits by the early shamans. These principles were important for survival in the hunter-gatherer culture. This facet of early human existence was in no way ignorant, but was the result of great scientific study conducted by our ancestors.
There is one thing that is somewhat mysterious about term god. While we may have covered much about the tribal deity Yahweh, who is often misinterpreted as a power greater than its attribute, it is still quite perplexing that a title of Buddha, God, would fill numerous books on monotheistic religious practices and even its sacred texts. Let us take a deeper look at Buddha.
We found evidence of Buddha’s association with Thoth earlier in our examination. This must be an ancient correspondence indeed for it would mean that the Egyptian Thoth was known in Asia as Buddha was known in Egypt. The Worship of the Dead: Or, The Origin and Nature of Pagan Idolatry and its Bearing Upon The Early History of Egypt and Babylonia by Colonel J. Garnier, published in 1909, states:
“The primitive or mythological Buddha is, therefore, identified with the prophetic god, and the author of magic and sorcery of Western Paganism, known under the name of Thoth, Taautus, Hermes, Mercury, Hea, Cannes, ” The All-wise Belus,” and the British Hu, or Budd, whose human original was Cush. The evidence of this identification is, it will be seen, accumulative, while the fact that the origin of magic is traceable to the early Cushite inhabitants of the Euphrates and Tigris valleys, whose language is so intimately allied with that of the Turanian and Mongolian races who worship Buddha, leaves little doubt that he is the same as the prophetic god of the primitive Cushites, or Accadians.
But there is yet another reason why Buddha must be identified with those gods whose human original was Cush, the great prophet and teacher of the ancient Paganism, the father of the black or Ethiopian race, whose son Nimrod established, shortly after the Deluge, the first great empire of the world in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates.
Buddha, although the chief god of the yellow race, is constantly represented as black, with woolly hair and negro features. “The representative of Buddha at the period of Chrishna,” says Colonel Tod, “was Nema Nath; he is of black complexion, and his statues exactly resemble in feature those of the young Memnon. His symbol was the snake.” “It has ever,” says Ferguson, “been one of the puzzles of the people of Buddhism that the founder of their religion should always have been represented in sculpture with woolly hair, like that of a negro.” “Buddha Jain, or Mahiman,” says Mr. Faber, “is perpetually represented by his Oriental worshippers with the complexion, the features, and the crisped hair of an African negro, so that many have argued that Buddha must have been an Egyptian, or Ethiopian.”
Garnier raises up some interesting points in regards to Buddha. He associates Buddha with Cush of Biblical lore, who is regarded as one of the founders of the magical arts when the Empire of Babylonia began. The primary reason for Garner’s association of Buddha with Cush is due to how Buddha is depicted in his oldest forms, as a Negro. He also illustrates, briefly, how this Cush, for reasons of cultural and linguistic similarity, is father of both the Ethiopian and Mongolian races.
If we were to take Garnier’s observation as fact, then this would simply mean that God, a title of Buddha, originates with the worship of Nimrod. However, such comparisons by Garnier, were made in the Christian belief that the black race descended from the Biblical patriarch Cush. There were other Christian scholars who differed with Garnier, concerning the origins and history of the black race, or if they are even descendants of the Biblical Adam at all. Godfrey Higgins, the famous archeologist and prominent Freemason, wrote the following in his classic work, entitled, Anacalypsis Volume 1:
“Mr. Upham admits, as everyone must, a primeval Buddha of great antiquity. His existence he does not attempt to explain, except so far as to admit that he was the Sun. Mr. Upham’s is the account of modern Buddhism, with this I do not concern myself, except in some few instances, where the ancient truth hid, under the modern trash, seems to show itself: as for instance, in the cycles noticed by Loubere and Cassini. From the lapse of time and other circumstances, the view of the Hindoo avatars has become indistinct; yet they are still so visible that almost every Christian who has of late carefully looked into the early history of them, is obliged to admit them.”
Higgins, in his response to Edward Upham, author of History of Buddhism, published in 1829, clearly cites the existence of a “primeval Buddha,” which is not to be confused with modern Buddhism. Higgins goes on to state that ‘almost every Christian who has of late carefully looked into the early history of the Buddhas, is obliged to admit them.’ In other words, there existed avatars, who were later revered as buddhas that predate the founding of Babylon. Later, in the same work, Higgins explains how Nimrod inherited the titles of Buddha that existed long before his time. He continues:
“Thus the Rev. Mr. Townsend says, “As this incarnate being was considered as a divine person, and “the son of God, and as Nimrod claimed the authority and titles of the incarnate, it is evident” that his father or his ancestor must, from some cause, have been also considered as divine.” I can have no doubt that Mr. Townsend is right, and that Nimrod was Bala-rama, an avatar, probably Maha-Beli, or an avatar of Buddha.”
According to Higgins, Nimrod inherited the titles of divine personage from an ancestor, which shows the existence of primeval Buddha before the time of Babylon. This is something, which according to Higgins, Christians must admit after a careful examination of early history. What history? Higgins then goes on to describes one of the most important events in human history, an archaic world war. It is from this war that a few tribes of India traveled from Southeast Asia to settle Babylon. Higgins continues:
“It is quite impossible to believe that all the striking marks of similarity between the names of towns, the modes or plans of building them, the names of persons, and the doctrines of the Orientals and the Western nations, can have been the effect of accident ; and I can see no other way of accounting for them than by supposing that they were brought by the first race of people who travelled Westwards from India, and who all had, with various sectarian differences, fundamentally the same religion, and gave the same names to their towns as those they had left in their own North-eastern countries. This practice we know has always prevailed among emigrating people, and prevails to this day, and it rationally removes all the difficulties. It cannot be expected that at this late day, amidst the ruins of cities which have almost disappeared, we should find in each all the traits or marks of the system, or a whole system, complete. It is as much as we can expect, if we can find, in each, detached parts of the system: for example, suppose I found the head of a man in Babylon, the leg of a man in Troy, and the hand of a man in Rome; though I did not find a whole man in any of them, I should be obliged to believe that all the towns had formerly been occupied by men. It is the same with the universal system. In every city some of the de’bris are to be found, quite enough to enable us to judge of the remainder, with as much certainty as we should in the case of the limbs of a man, or of an animal……
In the old books of the Hindoos, as it was before stated, we meet with accounts of great battles which took place between the followers of the Linga and those of the Ioni, and that the latter in very early times were expelled from India under the name of Yavanas. After the sun had left Taurus and entered Aries, or about that time, it is probable that the war above alluded to arose. Whether the question of the precedence of the Linga and Ioni had any connexion with the transit from Taurus to Aries I know not, but the two events appear to have taken place about the same time. The Buddhists or Yavanas were expelled; their priests were Culdees; and they were Jaines. They passed to the West. In their way they built, or their sect prevailed in, the city of Baal, Bal, or Babylon.”
Another obscure title of Nimrod is revealed in the unmasking of a very mysterious Biblical character. For centuries, there has existed a great interest in discovering the identity of the king-priest of Salem. The personage of Melchizedek, however, is well known. He is described as the king of Salem, who is recorded as blessing Abram after his defeat of king Chedorlaomer. His description of “king-priest” undoubtedly connects him with ancient Sumer and also reveals his identity. Hugh De Santis, in the book, Beyond Progress: An Interpretive Odyssey to the Future, states:
“All early civilizations from Sumer onward were ruled by a king or overlord……Indeed, the rulers of these societies were king-priests, intermediaries between gods and the natural world.”
The mysterious king Melchizedek was none other than Nimrod himself. Genesis 14:18-20 describes Melchizedek as follows:
“And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.”
Melchizedek was said to be a king-priest, a very common attribute of ancient Mesopotamian rulers. Melchizedek offered Abraham bread and wine, which is symbolic of an initiation according to old Sumerian traditions. One example of use of bread and wine as initiatory tools can be seen is found in the Gilgamesh Epics. Tim Unwin, in the book, Wine and the Vine: An Historical Geography of Viticulture and the Wine Trade, states:
“The Epic of Gilgamesh provides us with two other pieces of evidence about the use of wine in early Sumerian society. The first concerns the taming of Enkidu, the wild man of nature, later to become Gilgamesh’s inseparable companion. Enkidu is seduced by ‘a harlot from the temple of love’ (Epic of Gilgamesh 1960:99), who later also introduces him to the pleasures of wine, saying to him:
‘Enkidu, eat bread, it is the staff of life; drink the wine, it is the custom of the land.’ So he ate till he was full and drank strong wine, seven goblets. He became merry, his heart exulted and his face shone. He rubbed down the matted hair of his body and anointed himself with oil. Enkidu had become a man. (Epic of Gilgamesh, 1960:65-6).
Enkidu thus becomes a man by eating bread and drinking wine, symbolizing the development of agriculture which raised humanity above nature….The final use of wine mentioned in The Epic of Gilgamesh is following the hero’s death, when bread offerings are made and libation of wine are poured out…..but wine in its sacrificial role served at least five important symbolic functions: it symbolized the ‘divine fluid’: red wine, similar in colour to human blood, indicated or represented human sacrifice; together with bread it represented the first fruits of agriculture; it symbolized the hope of rebirth through its metaphorical connections with fertility rituals; and the drinking of wine induced that sense of other-worldliness associated with being in the presence of the gods.”
The utilization of bread and wine began as a pagan custom. The Epic of Gilgamesh is said to date back to 2100 BC. This is about a century before the estimated time of Abraham’s existence, which was 2000 BC. Yet, some scholars have theorized that the Gilgamesh story could be older. In any case, Enkidu was anointed after drinking the bread and wine. This was done while he was in the company of a “harlot,” who in some accounts is identified as Shamhat, a priestess of the goddess Inanna. She worked to bring Enkidu from nature into civilization, which is one meaning of the initiation of bread and wine. Ironically, there are many Biblical scholars who associate Gilgamesh with Nimrod.
Another point of interest can be found in Unwin’s observation that bread and wine represented the first fruits of agriculture and symbolized rebirth within the rites of ancient fertility cults. These rites of these fertility cults are metaphorically described in the ancient Sumerian myth, known as Inanna’’s Descent into the Netherworld. In some versions of this myth, Inanna/Ishtar, the world’s first crucified deity, is restored back to life after the bread and water of life are sprinkled over her corpse. This too, is also a reference to the initiatory symbols of bread and wine, used long before Abraham’s existed. The symbolic usage of bread and wine is an ancient Babylonian pagan practice.
After a close examination of ancient Babylonian customs, we can say with certainty that Abraham’s blessing by Melchizedek was also a form of initiation. The Book of Jubilees, which is considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, mentions the name of “Nebrod” (the Greek form of Nimrod) only as being the father of Azurad, the wife of Eber and mother of Peleg (8:7). This account would make Nimrod an ancestor of Abraham and all Hebrews. It is on this basis that the blessing of the bread and wine, bestowed upon Abraham by Melchizedek (Nimrod), was indeed a form of initiation that would grant his progeny prosperity. This legacy of initiation is revealed for us by the famous Masonic scholar, Albert G. Mackey. In the historical work, entitled, An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and Its Kindred Sciences, Mackey writes:
“The legend of the Craft in the Old Constitution refers to Nimrod as one of the founders of Masonry. Thus in the York MS., No. 1, we read:
“At ye making of ye Toure of Babell there was Masonrie first much esteemed of, and the King of Babilon ye was called Nimrod was A mason himselfe and loved well masons.”……
(Preferment) In all the Old Constitutions we find a reference made to ability and skill as the only claims for preferment or promotion. Thus in one of them, the Lansdowne Manuscript, whose date is about 1560, it is said that Nimrod gave a charge to the Masons that “they should ordaine the most wise and cunning man be Master of the King or Lord’s works that was amongst them,”
Nimrod, under the guise of King Melchizedek, gave Abraham a Masonic initiation and also acted as his god, or Most Worshipful Master. Nimrod’s blessing would ensure the prosperity of Abraham’s progeny over other nations and the rites of certain orders, whether ancient or modern, would be used to protect his descendants. The monotheistic faith of Abraham begins with the worship of Nimrod.
We have finally uncovered the origin of God and in the process we have been able to determine that God, in the mind of ancient man was not associated with the creator of all existence. Still, there are many questions that remain. Perhaps the answers can be found in the native culture of Abraham, which originated in ancient Mesopotamia. We will begin our investigation in Babylon.
